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  LONG TERM EFFECTS OF REVIVAL
  by George Middebrook
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the lasting impact of genuine revival by
sharing personal testimonies of transformation and growth in
individuals' lives. It highlights the process of revival as coming back
to life, obedience to God's prompting, confession of sins, and the
importance of humility and self-reflection. The speaker shares how
revival led to changes in relationships, personal behaviors, and a
deeper connection with God, illustrating the ongoing journey of revival
in one's life.

Duration: 27:34

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the lasting impact of genuine revival by sharing
personal testimonies of transformation and growth in individuals' lives.
It highlights the process of revival as coming back to life, obedience
to God's prompting, confession of sins, and the importance of humility
and self-reflection. The speaker shares how revival led to changes in
relationships, personal behaviors, and a deeper connection with God,
illustrating the ongoing journey of revival in one's life.

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CONTENT
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One of the questions I think I get asked most often is, does revival
really last? Is it just an emotional experience that is short-lived, or
is it something that when it is genuine and it comes, that it lasts? And
how do you know if it lasts? And I have learned that I could try to
argue that point day and night and convince no one. But the moment I can
point to an individual life that God has radically transformed and
changed in the midst of his presence and revival, and it's not just a
day later or two days later or two months later, but they can share out
of their life how many months later the change that was wrought not only
continued, but they've even gone far beyond that in their walk with God.
Not too many years ago now or months ago, God brought across our pathway
in a crusade a young businessman from Nacogdoches, Texas, who met with
God in revival.

And as a result, it's lasted, he's growing, he's going on with God. A
very unique testimony from a layperson and what revival has meant in
their life. George Middlebrook from Nacogdoches, Texas.

Why don't you come, take some time to share with these individuals what
God did in your life in revival. This week I've had the opportunity to
listen to so many testimonies from God's people of what they've done in
their own lives, and God has really taken a fresh spotlight on my heart
this week and really revealed what kind of person I really am. I guess
this is as difficult a time as I've ever had of sharing what God has
done in my life, and I just pray that you might be praying with me that
I could just give God all the glory and all the credit for what He's
done.

We talk about revival, I guess that's one of those things that's as
elusive as anything. We try to make a definition for it, but it's hard
to determine what it is. But God, by His grace, allowed me to see what
revival could do in my heart and in the life of a believer.

Eighteen months ago, if you'd asked me what revival was, I probably
would have told you that it had something to do when a preacher came,
maybe in the fall and in the spring and maybe a few people got saved.
But that's a long way from what revival is. Dictionary tells us this,
that revival is that process of coming back to life again.

It's as if something had been alive at some point in time, but had come
to a place of almost death. That's where God found me. I might have been
bought with the price of Christ's blood, it might have for me an eternal
life in heaven, but God found me a place that I was almost dead, and the
greatest need in my heart and my life was a revival.

I'd come back to a freshness of that, what God had given to me, and
realized what was mine in Christ. God used the ministry of Life Action
Ministries to come and use that instrument to minister to my life. The
first time I had an exposure to that was one day I was going down.

I guess I was susceptible, I didn't know what was happening. My pastor
came and handed me a little envelope, and he just said, I want you to
take this and take it home with you and read through it, and in a few
days we'll get back together and talk about the contents of that
envelope. I just stuck it in my Bible, and I didn't look at it until I
got home that day.

Started looking through that and had a bunch of information about some
ministry called Life Action Ministries, and some were way up in Michigan
I never heard of, and how they'd bring twenty or thirty people into your
church and stay two or three weeks, and I really didn't know what to
think. I thought my pastor might have gone crazy or something, I really
didn't know at that time, but I thought maybe that's the way they did it
in Michigan or some foreign country like in Texas, we think everywhere
else is a foreign country, but that's not the way we did it in our home,
but I soon found out that God could use that in our lives, and Byron
Paulus came a few weeks before our crusades started, and we were called
a time of prayer and he's a good deacon, and as I thought I was in my
church, I decided I'd get in on that, and I began to pray, but God began
to show me something, and I want to share to you, and I don't find it in
the Bible, but I believe it to be true, that our prayers have a whole
lot more to do than just the words that we might speak with our mouth,
but I believe more importantly it's what we're thinking in our heart and
what we're thinking in our mind while we're praying. Second night of our
crusade I had to stand up just as I'm before you this morning, and I had
to confess something to my church family, and what I had to confess to
them was that what I had been speaking in my mouth in prayer wasn't the
same thing I was thinking in my mind.

You see, what I had been thinking in my mind was if all those people
that sit on the back row in my church, if they could just make God an
inviolable and get right with God, the spiritual people in my church,
which I included myself among the chief of them, you know, we could get
something done in our church. These young people that sit down in front
and they come to church, and I think the only thing they were caring
about was who was there that Sunday, who they could sit by, if they
could meet God, we could really have revival. And my children, who I
brought to church every Sunday faithfully, if they could just get to
know God and have revival, then I could be the father I needed to be,
and I could begin to be the witness and the testimony in my home, and it
was them holding me back.

I guess the worst thing I was thinking was if my wife, if she could just
get right with God, and I could be the husband I needed to be. God broke
my heart that night, and He showed me it wasn't those people in that
back row, these young people, or my kids, and least of all it was my
wife, and to be honest with God, it was me. One time in my life, God
just spoke to me, and He said, if you're ever going to see revival in
your home and this church is ever going to know you, it was all right
here.

And I was going to have to pay. I came to that place that night, and I
told my church, it's not my brother, and it's not my sister, but it's
me, oh Lord, standing in need of prayer, and I guess if there's any key
to revival, we're going to have to come individually, one-on-one, to the
place that that psalmist came to when he said, search me, oh God, and
know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any
wicked way in me, and lead me in a way everlasting.

That's where I came, and I believe probably that's where my revival
began. It's funny, you know, how we pray for revival. I begin to pray
for revival, and I think the way we pray sometimes, it's almost as if
we're saying to God, oh God, we don't believe that you even want to
bring revival.

We doubt it, and we not only doubt that you want to bring it, we're not
even sure that you're able to bring it. We pray in so much doubt, we
don't have faith in what God wants to do. But the God that we serve is
not only more than able to bring us revival, he's more than willing.

He wants to see God's people. He bought us with a price, and he wants
more desire for our heart revival than you do. You don't even have it.

We don't even have the capability to ask him for revival the way he
wants to. The problem isn't so much of God giving us an opportunity, as
it is us getting in on that opportunity. God gave me an opportunity that
first night of our revival after I went home and got in bed.

I laid down, I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't. I rolled and
tumbled all night long. Finally early in the morning before daylight, I
got up out of my bed because I couldn't sleep, and God was dealing with
me something.

I went in my office in my home, and I got down on my knees, and God
began to talk in my mind about what he wanted me to do. You see, about a
year before that, I had been called to be a witness in a federal lawsuit
in Tyler, Texas, the court of William Wayne Justice, perhaps, I believe,
the most powerful man in our state because of the position he has as a
federal judge. Before I went to give the testimony, I really had in my
mind what they were going to ask me, and I really knew how I knew the
outcome of that case was going to need to be come out.

I decided if I could just give my testimony in such a way that it might
turn out the way I thought it needed to come out, I would help the whole
process. I'd help that jury, and I'd help that judge no matter what it
was I should say. I got on that stand, and I swore under oath to God
that I'd tell the truth, and I began to answer the questions with
phrases like this, I think so, and maybe, and I'm not sure, but
probably.

And God showed me on my knees that morning in my office that the answer
to those questions were yes, I'm sure, I'm positive, beyond a shadow of
a doubt. God showed me what I'd been calling clever testimony. God
called it a lie in my heart.

And I began to confess that to God, and I said, God, I'm sorry. I know
I'm a sinner. Will you forgive me? He said, I forgive you, but you're
going to have to do something about that.

You're going to have to call that judge up, and you're going to have to
confess to him what you did, and you're going to have to seek his mercy
and put yourself at his disposal. And I tell you, that was the hardest
thing that God ever asked me to do in my life, and I didn't know what to
do. I began to argue with God and try to come up with every kind of
evidence, and every time I'd argue, he'd say, call that judge.

I told God like I knew what I was saying. I said, God, you don't know
that judge. You just knew that judge like I knew him.

Everybody else in Texas knew him. You wouldn't dare ask me to go do
that. And I even quoted him a little scripture.

I said, God, you said if I would confess my sins, that you'd be able to
remove them as far as the east as from the west. And I said, God, if you
just forget about that this morning, I'll forget about it, and I can go
on to some parts of my life that I know they're bad. I need to deal with
it.

He just said, son, if you ever want to know me, you just ever want to go
on with me, this is the line we're going to draw. There's no going on
past this point until we deal right here in this one area of your life.
That's the opportunity God gives to us.

I continued to argue with God, and I came up with something that I
thought was mighty clever, and I said, God, you just don't understand. I
said, what you're doing and want me to do is a great idea, and I'll go
along with you. But your timing's all wrong.

Two or three, four weeks from now, I'll do it. We just started a revival
at our church today, yesterday. And if I come and I get picked up and
taken to jail and my name's all over the front of the paper, that's just
going to ruin everything we're trying to do down at church.

That didn't matter to God. He said, if you want to go on with me, you
call that judge. You confess to him what you did.

I guess there's no other point in my life that I've ever come to the
place I was that morning. I really don't have the words to describe to
you the distraughtness and the stretch of where I was, and I guess I
could describe it as I was at the end of myself. And there wasn't
anything else in my whole life from the time I was born that ever
mattered but that moment in God, what he wanted me to do.

I finally, in utter desperation, I called out to Almighty God and I
said, God, you've asked me to do so many things I've done before, and if
you just ask me anything this morning to do, I'll do it. You name it.
But God, you finally asked me one thing in my life I cannot do.

It was in that very moment of time as if time had stopped. I said, God,
I don't think I can do it. I said, Lord, I can't do it.

It was as if a big smile came across my heavenly Father as he looked
down at me and he just nodded his head and said, that's right, son. You
can't do anything about it. That's been your problem.

Every time I come to you and provide for you an opportunity to know me
and fellowship with me and seek me and follow me in obedience, you blow
it by just letting you do it on your own. I told the Lord, I said, Lord,
I can't do it, but I'm willing to do it if you'll do it. In that moment,
revival began in my heart and I got up off my knees and I went to my
kitchen and in the kitchen of my home, I confessed to my wife what I'd
done.

I went back in my office and called that judge up and asked him, tried
to reach him to confess to him what I'd done. Surprising to me, I
couldn't get a hold of him. Then I got a secretary and she said, I'm
sorry, nobody can talk to the judge.

He's in Houston, Texas recovering from surgery and nobody talked to him
at least for a week. I kind of was set back on my heels. I didn't know.

I said, God, I did what you said I'd do and the man's not there. I can't
even confess to him what I'd done. But you see, I told God his timing
was wrong, but God's timing's always right.

He just wanted to provide for me an opportunity of a week to see if I
was serious about being serious with him. A week went by and God
prompted my heart again. He said, call that judge.

I called him up and wasn't able to talk to him, but I was able to tell
the assistant what I'd done. They set up a meeting with the attorneys in
the case. This past September, I had the opportunity to sit around a
table with six or seven attorneys and share with them the truth that I
should have done the first time.

Those attorneys, I don't believe, were quite so interested in what I
said as they were interested in why a perfectly sound, apparently human
being would call a federal judge up and confess that he lied in his
court. For you see, I knew all the time when God was dealing with me, if
I called him, that I'd go to jail. Those people in a multi-million
dollar lawsuit would turn around and sue me instead of each other.

That's what I was facing. I had an opportunity to tell those lawyers
around that table that morning what had happened when a man meets God in
obedience and fellowship. I'm reminded every time I think about what God
did in my life of the story of how the Israelite nation, as they
wandered for 40 years in the wilderness in disobedience and grumbling
and complaining to God, finally came to the Jordan River.

By faith, they exercised faith, and they crossed over into the Promised
Land. When they got in there, God asked them to do two things. He asked
them to observe the Passover and to allow every man to be circumcised
who hadn't previously been circumcised.

And I believe, perhaps probably for the first time in 40 years since
they left Egypt, that they had done two things in a row. God asked them
to do. And you remember what happened? God blesses my heart every time I
think about the story.

He sent his own angel to stand in their midst, and when Joshua asked him
who he was, identify himself. He said, I'm the captain and the host of
God's army. Theologian scholars say that that was a pre-incarnation of
Jesus Christ himself come and stand in their midst.

That's what obedience and revival is all about. When we come to a place
of obedience in my life, I felt the very presence of God himself coming
and standing next to me that I've never felt in my life before. That's
what revival is all about.

Revival doesn't end there. Revival is a process of coming back to life.
And friends, I'm still in the process of coming back to know him, but
that's where revival began, in obedience of my part to God.

I wish I had some words to describe to you how I've come to know God and
be able to stand and actually be able to reach out and touch him and
experience him. God, in his mercy, I've come to know him, and as God's
revealed a little bit more of myself and I've seen myself and I've dealt
with it, he's allowed me to see a little more of him. God has worked a
work in my marriage, and in 18 years of marriage, I've never had the
relationship I've had with my wife.

I really didn't know that one human being could know another human being
like I've come to know my wife. I regret that probably more than
anything else in my life, is that I spent 18 years not knowing the
person I'm married to. But God's allowed us to fellowship together, and
when I see her, I look in her eyes and I see a love for me that I've
never seen before.

I see Jesus in her eyes. When she looks in my eyes, she doesn't see me
anymore. She sees a love that I have for her, that Jesus has for her,
because I couldn't manufacture that love.

But our God is not only, I found out, discovered, interested in our
spiritual relationship with him on a spiritual level, but he's a
practical God. I just thank God every day in the morning when I get up
and at night, because he's given me an illustration in my life to let me
know. This morning, when I got out of bed, he reminded me of how he
loves me and how he wants me to walk in obedience.

I want to share the story with you. I have this problem I've had ever
since I've been married all my married life. I'm one of these people
that pulls the sheets off their bed at night when I sleep, just in my
subconscious, I guess.

Over the course of 18 years of marriage, it's really continued to get
worse and worse. The last few months before I met God, in a way, in
revival, it had gotten so bad. It came to be the greatest distress, I
guess, my marriage had ever had or could have.

I got to a place, I'm not just one that pulls the sheets loose a little.
I take the mattress or the blanket and the sheet and pull them
completely loose at the bottom and roll up in them, throw them on the
floor. Come to a point in my marriage where my wife, I'd get up every
morning just like she was in my throat and wanted to strangle me.

I'd pull the bottom sheet and the mattress pad and get them all loose.
It was terrible. One morning, finally, not too long before our faction
came to our church, I got up one morning and my wife, just in
desperation, I thought she was going to kill me.

Luckily, she didn't. She said, I may have to be married to you, but I
don't have to sleep in the same bed with you anymore and I'm not going
to do it. I'm going to buy twin beds today.

I'm going to tell you, there's just a point in our relationship that it
just about severed our being able to communicate with each other.
Luckily, she cooled off that night and we continued to sleep together,
but the problem got worse. After the first night of our revival, I got
up to my church and confessed to them that I had been thinking about
them instead of me and that I had met God that day in revival that
morning.

I went home that night and I got in bed unsuspicious of anything that
might happen that night and went to sleep as usual. The next morning
when I got up, I really realized something was wrong before I even woke
up and opened my eyes. I knew there was something wrong.

I didn't know what exactly it was, but I just began to open one eye at a
time and kind of look around and I noticed that my sheets were all tight
on my bed. I didn't want to mess any good thing up, so I just kind of
slithered out in front of that sheet and went and got dressed. I kind of
forgot about that day and the next morning I came back and got in bed
the same way and the next morning the same thing happened.

I just kind of slithered out and got dressed. I didn't want to say
anything. I knew my wife was noticing it, but she didn't want to jinx it
and I didn't want to jinx it, so we went on.

Third morning, same thing. It's been 18 months ago and every morning now
when I get out of my bed, my sheets are just as tight as they were. That
probably, to a lot of people, sounds about the silliest story they've
ever heard and maybe it is.

I go and I lay down in my bed at night and put my head on my pillow.
There's a peace that comes over me that I don't understand and I can't
explain. God said he'd give to us a peace that passes all understanding.

That peace came about in one place in my life. It came about in my place
of obedience to God. I'm just thankful for him to point out to me,
myself, that I can't even see.

I guess as I've experienced the process of revival in my own life, I
guess at one time I thought it might be something that would just be a
one-time experience, but even this week I've discovered how God
continues to have to put that spotlight on our hearts and lives. I guess
that area in my life that has dealt me more problem and more misery than
any other area is that area of pride in my life. I guess during that
crusade that if there was one thing I didn't think I had, it was pride.

I just didn't think that was part of me. God began to try to show me
through things that were happening. There's a close friend of mine, a
deacon in our church, that sat in front of me every Sunday morning.

During the course of that revival, he came under conviction and I had an
opportunity to sit and witness him giving his heart and life to Jesus
Christ. I believe it was pride in his own life that kept him from doing
that. As I saw my friend come to know the Lord and all that pride, I
didn't ever think that that had anything to do with me.

One night, God, in just a special way, was able to take his light and
shine on my heart and show me pride in my life. You see, there's an area
of pride that is so slowly, subtly, just over a period of time, and
crept up in my life so subtly that I was blinded to it. I've got a son
that's 11 years old, Andrew.

God has just blessed him in such a wonderful way, in every way,
academically, in athletics, in every way. Over a period of time, I had
come to look upon his abilities and what he'd done, and I just marveled
in him in every sport that he'd practice or play, and he was just at the
top on his team. God began to show me that my pride that I had thought
had been in him and what God had done in him was my pride in me.

God began to show me that I thought in some way I was special and
superhuman because I had produced this young person that was so good.
God just began to break my heart and show me that I was going around
looking for praise of men because of what my son had done. And the worst
of all, he kept me from having the fellowship with him that I needed and
kept me from being a father that I needed to be to him.

After our services one night, I went to him and just bore my heart to
him, and I said, Andrew, I said, the pride that I thought I had in you
had been pride in me and all, and I seek your forgiveness in it. In his
mercy, he forgave me. I was able to reestablish a relationship and a
fellowship with my son that I needed that had been my fault that I
hadn't had.

But God wasn't through talking about me. My life was so messed up with
pride that he had to just paint me a picture. In fact, it was a wall-to-
wall mural of my life, and he started that night with Andrew, but there
was another scene to that picture, that mural that he wanted to paint of
me, and he wasn't through.

But you see, there was another area in my life that I think happens to
us as Christians sometimes that slowly crept in. God had given me the
opportunity on a number of occasions to share my faith with people and
come to see them, know the Lord. I guess over time, I got to thinking
that perhaps God had to have me, and it was my ability and being able to
share my faith with people, and I began to think that I was something
special.

But there was one person in all the world that I had on my heart to know
the Lord, and that was my own son, Andrew. All my other two children had
come to know the Lord, but Andrew hadn't. On a lot of occasions, I'd go
to Andrew and I'd say, Andrew, I wonder if I might speak to you about
the Lord tonight.

He wouldn't even respond. He wouldn't even answer to me. He'd just kind
of look the other way and walk off, and we wouldn't even get involved.

That's all we'd do. I'd wait two or three months, and I'd go back to
him, same response. But you see, I thought that if my son came to know
the Lord, it was going to be me that had to lead him.

I didn't want some preacher scaring him into walking down an aisle or
giving him some false theology that was wrong, that it was me. I had the
answer for him. If he ever came to know the Lord, I was going to have to
share it with him.

That night after I'd confessed my pride to Andrew, I went home that
night. I went to his door, and I knocked on his door, and I said,
Andrew, I wonder if I might come in and just talk with you for just a
minute. He said, sure, Dad, come on in.

I went, and I sat out on the side of his bed as he lay there in his bed.
I said, Andrew, tonight I wonder if you'd mind if I talked to you just a
minute about the Lord. You know, his smile on his face, sure, Dad, I'd
like to hear it.

And so I guess in a way that at the time I probably thought was very
eloquent, that's when I began to share with him how heaven was a free
gift, and man was a sinner, and that sinner separated us from the love
of God, but God provided for us a salvation through the blood of His
Son, and by repenting of our sins in faith in Him, we could have eternal
life. I got through with a discourse that probably took 10, 15 minutes
that I thought was very eloquent, and I said, Andrew, does that make
sense to you? He looked up at me, and he said, yeah, Dad, that makes a
lot of sense. I guess in my mind I thought, all right, I'm ready to go
in for the kill, maybe.

I said, Andrew, I wonder if tonight you'd like to ask Christ to come
into your heart tonight as your personal Lord and Savior. As I asked
that question to my son, God allowed him to take that paintbrush and
paint those final strokes on that mural, that picture that he was trying
to paint of me. I said, Andrew, I wonder if you'd like to invite Christ
in your heart tonight as your personal Savior.

He looked right up at me, right in my eyes, and he said, Dad, a few
weeks ago right here in my room, I asked Christ to come into my heart,
my personal Savior. Pride had so come and consumed my life that I
couldn't even see myself. Pride had consumed me that I didn't even
realize that God didn't need me.

Not only did I not need me, God couldn't even use me because I was so
full of myself. If there's any prayer I have to God today, it's that he
continue to paint me a picture every day of my life and allow me to see
myself. If there's anything I would say to anybody that's seeking
revival in their own heart and life, it's this, that you might get on
your knees and just beg God, beg Him to paint you a picture.

Not that person that you think you are, and not that picture of that
person that you hope to be, but a picture of that real person that you
really are. If you ever get that picture, that real picture of yourself,
and you'll deal with it before God, there'll be come in your life a
revival that won't be end. God's not through with me, but God in His
mercy allowed me that day to begin a revival in my heart, and God's
blessed me through it.

Thank you.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/9SNu_8wVDYg.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/george-middebrook/long-term-effects-of-revival/
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